Episode #16 Career Pivot with Sonia Wedrychowicz: A banker turned consultant

My guest today is Sonia Wedrychowicz . She came from a family of lawyers but didn’t want to become one herself – she wanted to travel. She found out that in the Warsaw School of Economics, there was a program called International trade, and she knew that if she studied trade, she would sign international contracts on behalf of Poland with foreign countries. That was close enough to her dream to travel, and that was Sonia’s decision-making process to study economics. And this is how she started a successful career that took her all over the world. Sonia is a Partner with McKinsey & Company’s Global Banking Practice, based in Dubai. She advises corporate and consumer banks in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia on topics including growth and digital transformation. Before joining McKinsey, Sonia had a successful banking career in Citibank, corporate and consumer banking, for 18 years. After that, she was a key driver of digital banking transformation at DBS in Singapore, where she was responsible for building digital banks in India and Indonesia. She then led an agile transformation of Chase at JPMorgan Chase in the US. Outside work, Sonia loves to read, cook, travel, and spend time with her family. In addition, she is an accomplished black belt kickboxer. We had a fun and engaging discussion on many topics: working for one organization for 18 years, becoming a tech lead without a tech background, being a consultant, and many more. For those planning job change, Sonia has the following advice: 1.       Understand your internal motives for the change. This will make the next move  easier and more relevant. 2.       Make profound due diligence of the team and culture of your new employer. The interviews for a new job are like the teaser for a new movie, and then the movie can be very very different from what you expected. 3.       Consider your new job not only from a promotion and money point of view but also how it is positioned in the fast-changing world. 

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